Burdizzo said:
You have to pay your country club dues to read it.
I will post some excerpts when I get more time.
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Forty years after developers started blanketing the Sunbelt with housing developments built around golf, many courses are closing amid a decline in golf participation, leaving homeowners to grapple with the consequences. People often believe a course will bolster their property values. But many are discovering the opposite can now be trueand legal disputes are erupting as communities fight over how to handle the struggling courses.
"There are hundreds of other communities in this situation, and they're trapped and they don't know what to do," says Peter Nanula, chief executive of Concert Golf Partners, a golf club owner-operator that owns about 20 private clubs across the U.S. One of his current projects is the rehabilitation of a recently acquired club in Florida that had shut one of its three golf courses and sued residents who had stopped paying membership fees.
More than 200 golf courses closed in 2017 across the country, while only about 15 new ones opened, according to the National Golf Foundation, a golf market-research provider. Florida-based development consultant Blake Plumley said he gets about seven phone calls every week seeking advice about struggling courses, from course owners or homeowners' associations. He said most of those matters end up in court, and predicted that the U.S. is only about halfway through the number of golf-course closures that will eventually occur.
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When a course closes, prices for nearby homes typically fall about 25%, Mr. Plumley said. Prices can plummet 40% or 50% if a contentious legal battle arises, as potential home buyers balk at the uncertainty accompanying litigation.
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In the early 2000s, as golf communities starting feeling the strain, many clubs began requiring all of their home buyers to become members. Designed as a way to guarantee more cash flow for clubs, so-called mandatory membership can end up harming home values by narrowing the pool of potential buyers. "What we are consistently seeing is that those properties, all else being equal, are selling way below what they should be selling for," says Ken Johnson, a real-estate economist at Florida Atlantic University.
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Ms. Harrington said the suit against her was dropped after Concert's purchase, as were others that hadn't already been dismissed or resolved. While she still owns her home at the Fountains she is no longer a member of the Fountains Country Club, and now belongs to another nearby golf course.
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Among the buyers at Akoya are Phil Kupperman and his wife Jill, who are in contract to buy a three-bedroom apartment there. Currently residents of another development within Boca West, they are downsizing from a roughly 4,000-square-foot house.
Mr. Kupperman, a self-described "golf fanatic," said Boca West's amenitiesincluding four golf coursesmore than justify the cost. He said he views mandatory membership as a positive, providing funds to keep the clubs' infrastructure up-to-date and ensuring that "the people coming here are the people you want in your community," since they are vetted by the country club before being allowed to join.
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For some, it is paradise lost. Lou Altieri, a 68-year-old who paid more than $1 million for a house at Kensington Golf & Country Club in Naples, Fla., in 2005, likened his initial experience of living in a golf community to being "on a cruise ship all the time." When he joined the club, he said he was told he'd get a partial refund of his $45,000 initiation fee if he left. But when he decided to resign from the club several years later, he was told there were about 60 people ahead of him on the "resign list," each with a membership that had to be sold to a newcomer before Mr. Altieri could receive his refund.
Unwilling to accept this, Mr. Altieri stopped paying his dues, and the club sued. The two parties eventually settled in arbitration and Mr. Altieri left the club, selling his house at a loss in 2011.
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But when he decided to resign from the club several years later, he was told there were about 60 people ahead of him on the "resign list," each with a membership that had to be sold to a newcomer before Mr. Altieri could receive his refund.
Why be a snob at a quaint country club when you have an entire world of social media to use in telling the world how important you are.IrishTxAggie said:
Country clubs aren't what they used to be. Gen Y and beyond couldn't give a rat's ass about the "prestige" of being a member and we prefer to spend our money elsewhere.
Precisely! I can share pictures on the Twitter, Instagram, and/or Facebook of me flying first class to some awesome vacation destination while staying in 5 star resorts. Who needs a country club membership to come off as a tool anymore?Old RV Ag said:Why be a snob at a quaint country club when you have an entire world of social media to use in telling the world how important you are.IrishTxAggie said:
Country clubs aren't what they used to be. Gen Y and beyond couldn't give a rat's ass about the "prestige" of being a member and we prefer to spend our money elsewhere.
FIFMDRE06 said:
Interesting thread. My club membership has nothing to do with prestige and everything to so with the fact provides a ton of year-round entertainment for the entire family. Its great to tee off early, then take the golf cart over to meet the family at the resort pool where we can swim for a few hours with full pool-side food and beverage service. Throughout the year the club has a huge July 4th pool party with fireworks, Memorial Day pool party, annual crawfish boil, annual chili cook off, tennis and golf camps for kids, breakfast with Santa & Easter Bunny, monthly golf and tennis tournaments for both women and men (with childcare). Our "junior" membership (under Age 42) is also full, so it's not just a bunch of old people either.
I can see how a club is a tough sell for those without kids or in a city with a ton of stuff to do, but there's not a ton of stuff to do on the weekends in Houston with kids. You can only go to the zoo, museums and movies so many times.
Champ Bailey said:
The biggest thing to me is that I can basically get every amenity a country club offers besides golf at my local gym now.
rgag12 said:
Got out of my Netflix long calls right at open when it flashed to $356. Booked a solid profit, and probably gave some up, but I'm way too nervous about that one.
Golf in the traditional sense is declining. The attached link is pro-industry, but does state there is an increase in related golf facilities. Think things like Top Golf. As society gets busier and busier, no one has time to spend an entire morning or afternoon playing 18 holes. Plus, younger people may find it boring. There is a market, I think, for private clubs offering some of the amenities of country clubs. The problem is that a golf course represents a significant continuing operating cost to such a club. So a consumer could decide it's not worth the additional cost or find a place that offers such amenities without the additional cost of the golf course.Quote:
Are fewer people playing golf? Or are fewer people willing to shell out the costs to be a member?
Disagree. If this were true, social media wouldn't be a big thing. Number of followers wouldn't be tracked and we sure wouldn't have that thing called a selfie! To them, "local" is the world.CS78 said:
Very true. My grandparents kept their country club membership for years after my grandfather stopped playing gold just so they could take us to the pool. Now days, my kids go with their grandmother to our neighborhood pool.
I also agree with the younger generation being less likely to feel the need to climb the local social ladder.
Local is the key word. They don't have to go to the country club to rub elbows, they can do it on their phone.Old RV Ag said:
Disagree. If this were true, social media wouldn't be a big thing. Number of followers wouldn't be tracked and we sure wouldn't have that thing called a selfie! To them, "local" is the world.
Yep, we're joining a new gym that'll be finished this year. Gym, lap pool, resort pool, cabanas, bar, waiters, food, spa, etc. Plus it's in town and was less than $100 initiation, not $xx,000....Champ Bailey said:
The biggest thing to me is that I can basically get every amenity a country club offers besides golf at my local gym now Many apartments are the same way.
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20 the increase, in percentage, over 2011 in junior golf participation, which came out to roughly 500,000 kids. It's an increasingly diverse group, too: of all juniors, 33 percent are girls and 33 percent are from non-white backgrounds both record-high percentages.
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2300+ Number of "alternative golf facilities" (practice ranges, miniature golf, and indoor centers) including 1,019 miniature golf facilities and 1,304 driving ranges. Alternative facilities generated $1.131 billion up from $907.1 million in 2011 thanks in no small part to the rise of TopGolf.
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129,603 Average dollars spent on capital investment, up from $98,873 in 2011.
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2.5 million Number of golfers who played for the first time in 2016, up from 1.5 million in 2011. More potential good news? The number of "latent golfers," non-golfers interested in playing golf, doubled from 6.4 million to 12.8 million.
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7.2 billion Dollars spent on new home construction in golf communities, up from $3.1B in 2011.
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2.6 Million
MATCHING LAST YEAR AS THE HIGHEST SINGLE-YEAR MEASUREMENT ON RECORD.
The industry has had five straight years with more than 2 million beginners. By comparison, there were 1.5 million beginners in 2011. Prior to the past two years, the previous recorded-high of 2.4 million was set in 2000, when Tiger Woods was at the height of his popularity.
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The category of young adults (18-34 year olds) is the sport's biggest customer age segment, with
6.1 Million
ON-COURSE PARTICIPANTS AND ANOTHER
4.1 Million
OFF-COURSE ONLY PARTICIPANTS.
The engagement within this demographic has remained steady for the past five years. Interest in playing among non-golfing young adults is high, with more than 5.3 million saying they are "very interested" in taking up the game.
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2.5 Million Juniors
played golf on a course in 2018, remaining relatively stable in relation to recent years, with the participation base fluctuating between 2.5 million and 3 million. This segment of the golf population is more diverse than ever before
MORE THAN ONE-THIRD
36%
of today's juniors are girls compared to 15% in 2000. Almost one-quarter of juniors are non-Caucasian while just 6% were minority participants 20 years ago.
